WIP color docs

matplotlib · jenshnielsen · Mar 29, 2016 · Dec 31, 2015 · Jan 2, 2016 · Jan 2, 2016
commit b93bd5db6435c95f8428da5efa53200563d63771
diff --git a/doc/users/beginner.rst b/doc/users/beginner.rst
@@ -20,8 +20,6 @@ Beginner's Guide
    legend_guide.rst
    annotations_guide.rst
    screenshots.rst
+    colors.rst
    colormaps.rst
    colormapnorms.rst
-
-
-
diff --git a/doc/users/colors.rst b/doc/users/colors.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+.. _colors:
+
+*****************
+Specifying Colors
+*****************
+
+In almost all places in matplotlib where a color can be specified by the user it can be provided as:
+
+* ``(r, g, b)`` tuples
+* ``(r, g, b, a)`` tuples
+* hex string, ex ``#OFOFOF``
+* float value between [0, 1] for gray level
+* valid css4/X11 name
+* valid name from the `XKCD color survey <http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/>`__  This names maybe
+  prefixed by ``'XKCD'`` as the css4 names have priority
+* One of ``{'b', 'g', 'r', 'c', 'm', 'y', 'k', 'w'}``
+
+Internally, we are moving to storing all colors as RGBA quadruples.
+
+Name clash between CSS4/X11 and XKCD
+------------------------------------